Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez returned for the first time in more than 20 years on Wednesday to the home town that inspired him to create his most famous novel, “100 years of Solitude.”
Thousands packed the town’s streets to greet the 80-year-old patron of Latin America’s magic-realism style, with cheers, shouts and applause for the man known fondly as Gabo on a visit 40 years after his most famous novel was published.
Dressed impeccably in white, the 1982 winner of the Nobel prize for literature stepped out of the tourist train that brought him to Aracataca as people screamed out “Long live Gabo,” and “Gabo, welcome home.”
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During the 1980s, he went into exile in Mexico after he was accused of links to the M-19 guerrilla movement and later helped negotiate talks with the country’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Given the threat of paramilitary violence against persons perceived of as pro-guerrilla, it is an understandable move, although I didn’t realize he hadn’t set foot in the country for two decades.
Among issues are fumigations with glyphosate, Ecuadorian bodies found in common graves of the neighboring country and compensations, among others.
Quito hopes with this meeting to reactivate the Neighborhood Commission for the Development of the Bordering Integration Zone to boost bi-national deals.
Issues of violence, narcotic and anti-narcotics have been an ongoing issue between these two states for some time now.
Adam Isacson has an interview (video with English subtitles) with fomer ELN member León Valencia on the subject of the ongoing peace talks between the Colombian government and the ELN:León Valencia: ELN cease-fire likely by July.
Upon a first reading I say that I think he makes a number of very valid points. Of the most salient is the notion that how this situation is handled will have implications for any future negotiations with the FARC and ELN mean that the government needs to carefully consider how to proceed.
Jorge Noguera, the former national intelligence chief, under investigation for parapolitical and narcopolitical dealings himself, charges that the Colombian DAS has a “book” on politicians with ties to the FARC
We shall see. Certainly if this is true, it will escalate an already major scandal (the linkage of a number of current and former Colombian politicians to paramilitary groups).
However, I must admit I am a tad skeptical.
First off, it has a retaliatory element to it (not to mention me-tooism): arrest me for para ties, will you! Well look: I have a book, too! Nyah!
Plus, why say you have a list, and then not reveal it? That sort of manuever always seems a bit odd.
Second, and more analytically, it makes less sense for Colombian politicians to have guerrilla ties than it does for them to have paramilitary ties. Paramilitary groups could be used, by persons already in power in specific regions to remain in power. The FARC’s goals are to remove those currently in power and to replace them. As such, it is unclear why members of the FARC would help maintain the status quo. Additionally, FARC ties on the part of politicians have been known to be a good way to get oneself killed (see: the Patriot Union).
I am not saying it is impossible, but I am saying it doesn’t ring true–while the connections to paramilitaries made a great deal of sense.
The governor of a Colombian province handed himself over to prosecutors on Thursday shortly after he was ordered arrested as part of an investigation into ties between politicians and paramilitary death squads.
Hernando Molina is the second governor jailed in the probe that is forcing President Alvaro Uribe to defend his government over charges some of his allies once conspired with militia commanders before they demobilized under a peace deal.
Prosecutors have so far imprisoned 13 lawmakers on charges they colluded with rightist paramilitaries who massacred and controlled swaths of Colombia in the name of countering rebels who are still fighting Latin America’s oldest insurgency.
And the story continues to grow…
Molina is governor of Cesar, which is on the Venezuelan border. Of the politicians arrested (both current and former) in regards to the parapolitics scandal, the preponderance have come from Cesar, Cordoba, Magdalena and Sucre, all in north and northeast Colombia. The current governor of Magdalena is in custody, as is a former governor of Sucre. Numerous Senators from the departments in question are also in jail.
Molina ran unopposed for the position in 2024 as the Liberal Party’s candidate. The likelihood is that other candidates were intimidated into not running by paramilitary groups.
It is worth noting that his matronymic (mother’s last name) is Araújo, which is almost certainly the same Araújo family that has already seen numerous arrests (including a Senator from Cesar and his father, a former Senator).
A Colombian policeman held hostage by left-wing Farc rebels for nearly nine years has escaped his captors.
Jhon Frank Pinchao said he spent 17 days lost in the jungle before he was found by an army patrol on Wednesday.
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He said he had been waiting for an opportunity to escape for eight-and-a-half years and when his captors finally let down their guard he seized the chance.
He told how he walked, swam and crawled through the Amazon jungle in the eastern province of Vaupes for days before he stumbled on the army patrol.
Mr Pinchao was seized by the Farc - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - when the rebels attacked the town of Mitu in 1998.
The kidnapping and holding of victims for years on end is one of the many insidious features of the violence in Colombia. The notion of spending almost a decade moving from camp to camp as a prisoner, never knowing if one is ever going to return to one’s family and friends is a pretty hideous existence–not to mention what it would mean to have nine years carved out of your life and thrown away.
Pnichao was held, it should be noted, with some high-profile hostages:
He said he was held in a camp with three US intelligence agents and Colombia’s former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
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“The last time I saw them was 28 April,” he said.
Ms Betancourt, who has dual Colombian-French nationality, was seized in February 2024 while campaigning for president in southern Colombia.
The three Americans were captured in February 2024 after their plane came down during a surveillance mission in the south of the country.
A commander of Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary AUC has alleged that two members of the current government previously conspired with the group.
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Mancuso, a high-ranking member of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), gave evidence as part of the 2024 peace deal which has led to the demobilisation of thousands of paramilitary fighters.
He has alleged that Colombia’s Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos met paramilitaries between 1996 and 1997 to help plot the overthrow of then President Ernesto Samper.
Mancuso also claimed he met Vice-President Francisco Santos, the defence minister’s cousin, in the late 1990s to discuss the creation of a new militia group to fight guerrillas in the capital, Bogota.
Mancuso has credibility in such revelations, as he is the main source for the entire “Treaty of Ralito” situation that has led to the arrest of over 20 current and former members of congress.
The Santos family has been prominent in Liberal Party politics for over a century (although they now are allied with Uribe, a former Liberal without a formal party affiliation), and has controlled the nation’s leading newspaper, El Tiempo.
Speaking of El Tiempo, in its story on this testimony it states that there were about four meetings between the current VP and paramilitary leader. There is also an allegation that the current Defense MInister met with the infamous Carlo Castaño (one time AUC leader, now deceased):
Sin mencionar nunca el contexto de los encuentros, el ex Auc habló de al menos cuatro reuniones del hoy Vicepresidente con jefes paramilitares en la Costa y Bogotá. Entre ellas incluyó una que, según dijo, fue en la sede de EL TIEMPO con varios periodistas.
Antes, Mancuso había hablado de Juan Manuel Santos, y de dos encuentros suyos con él y con Castaño en Córdoba.
According to the report, Mancuso alleges that the paramilitaries also met with four generals to coordinate activities.
The most explosive element of the testimony, according to the El Tiempo story is that Mancuso accuses the current Defense Minister of discussing a “type of coup” against the Samper administration:
“Durante la charla Santos le preguntó (a Castaño) que tan comprometido estaba el presidente Samper con el narcotráfico, a lo cual Castaño le respondió afirmativamente. Incluso le mencionó que tenía pruebas. En palabras del ex Auc, les propuso “una especie de golpe de Estado”. Fue, cuando, según dijo, el presidente Samper supo y se comenzó a hablar de “los conspiretas”.
President Álvaro Uribe, the Bush administration’s closest ally in Latin America, faces an intensifying scandal after a jailed former commander of paramilitary death squads testified Tuesday that Mr. Uribe’s defense minister had tried to plot with the outlawed private militias to upset the rule of a former president.
Speaking at a closed court hearing in Medellín, Salvatore Mancuso, the former paramilitary warlord, said Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos had met with paramilitary leaders in the mid-1990s to discuss efforts to destabilize the president at the time, Ernesto Samper, according to judicial officials.
The story also notes that Defense Minister Santos states that his meeting with the paramilitary groups was for the purpose of peace talks, and that there was a journalist present at the meetings. Further, the meeting included other important functionaries, including ex-President Betancur. Certainly such facts would be possible to verify, although it is unclear if these meetings are the ones that Mancuso is speaking of.
One of the accused general stated that this was Mancuso’s attempt at revenge.
The government has declined to comment at this point.
The Colombian government ordered the arrest of 19 current and former officials Monday who are accused of signing a 2024 “devil’s pact” with outlawed paramilitary groups in which they promised to work together to “re-found Colombia.”
The orders represent the government’s biggest move yet to bring to justice politicians it alleges were complicit with the right-wing militias in Colombia’s decades-long civil war. Farmers and businessmen formed the militias for self-defense against leftist guerrillas in the 1980s, but many of the groups evolved into mafias engaged in killings, drug trafficking, extortion, land grabs and election fraud.
The document, known as the Treaty of Ralito, came to light this year. Prosecutors here have described it as a “devil’s pact” that candidates signed to obtain political and financial advantage from association with the paramilitaries.
Paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso presented a copy of the document during court testimony he gave earlier this year.
This is one of those situation where on the one hand it is a positive that the justice system appears to be working, but also a radical negative that a substantial number of elected officials have been in secret alliance with paramilitary groups.
The arrested:
Warrants for the arrests of five sitting congressmen were issued by the Supreme Court because only the highest court has the power to file charges against national legislators. Four of the five are in custody, including Sen. Miguel de la Espriella, who first disclosed the existence of the document in January.
The others in custody are Sen. Reginaldo Montes, Congressman Jose de los Santos Negrete and Sen. Juan Manuel Lopez. Still at large is Sen. William Montes. All except Lopez are Uribe supporters.
The other 14 politicians are ex-officeholders who were indicted by Colombia’s attorney general Monday because they have lost their immunity. They include former senators, congressmen, governors and mayors. Eleven were in custody as of Monday evening, including Eleonora Pineda, who frequently defended paramilitaries as a congresswoman.
Among the paramilitary leaders who signed the 2024 pact were Mancuso; Rodrigo Tovar, alias Jorge 40; and Diego Fernando Murillo, known as Don Berna. Mancuso and Murillo are wanted on drug-trafficking charges in the United States.
This is not the first set of arrests of sitting congressmen in the current scandal:
Eight sitting members of congress, all Uribe supporters, were arrested in November and February on charges of consorting with paramilitaries to commit crimes that ranged from electoral fraud to mass murder. Among them were the brother and cousin of former Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo.
